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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Contest Prizes Packed and Ready to Ship!

WHEW!

Well, my label maker failed me, and I ended up printing out everyone's addresses on the prizes by hand, which delayed me a bit, but I finished up tonight, and will post pictures tomorrow.

And--you guys are awesome. I was overwhelmed by the number of people who participated! Originally, I thought I'd be able to send everyone a little something, even if it was just a postcard...but within the first day you guys went through more postcards than I'd had printed! I was able to sneak in a few extra prizes, though, so...

How about some statistics:

At least one person from all 50 states entered the contest

49 countries entered

Top ten most entries came from (in order):

1. California

2. Canada

3. Texas

4. North Carolina

5. New York

6. Michigan & Florida (tied)

7. Australia

8. Pennsylvania

9. Illinois

10. The United Kingdom (all countries represented!)

The Grand Prize went to someone in the US

1 ARC Watch Prize went to South Africa

3 ARC prizes went to other foreign countries

12 smaller prizes went to foreign countries

It was so surreal to be filling out the envelopes and see names I recognized--at least a dozen bloggers whose blogs I've been with or who I've conversed with on Twitter. One of the winners was someone I knew personally--a friend from college who I've not seen for at least five years and had no idea she even knew I had a book coming out (hi Amber!).

It was even more surreal to see names and places that I had no idea people even knew who I was. In some cases, it brought back memories--I'd been to Switzerland and France and (ironically) stayed on a street nearby one of the London winners when I did my study abroad. The foreign envelopes were so much fun to fill out--my favorite was one of the winners' addresses from Sweden--I got to make all sorts of funny accent marks on the letters and it just made my day! And it was so weird to see that mulitple entries came from countries where I've not sold yet--China, Barbados, Herzegovina, Slovakia (a winner came from here), Macedonia, Malaysia. And it was especially neat for me to see that FIVE people entered from the Netherlands--I know one of them (hi Corrine!) but not the other four!

This was SUCH a blast. I'm actually glad I didn't get the label maker to automate the labels and I was able to hand-write all the addresses. It was so much fun writing down the addresses and imagining each one whizzing off to a far corner of the world. I'd smile when I got to another California or Texas (I think these two had the highest percentage of winners; ironically, of the top ten most entered places, North Carolina had the fewest winners). The person with the longest name of all--it took up two whole lines on the envelope--was from Puerto Rico, and I spent a good five minutes trying to pronounce the name.

Right now, I can't wait to see my small local post office worker's face when I show up with two laundry baskets full of mail going all across the world and the US!